The Municipality of Patras has been illegal evicting Roma families from the Makrigianni area of the city. For eviction please read bulldozing peoples houses while they were away.
For the families who are now homeless, this is the fourth "eviction" in two years. In all these cases, the Municipality said it did not evict people, it merely "cleaned the area of deserted houses after acquiring consent from other Roma living there (not the ones whose houses they destroyed)
From the Greek Helsinki Monitor
The GHM considers this eviction as blatantly illegal, since Greek courts (Magistrates Court of Patras) ruled twice in October 2005 (decisions no. 312/205 for the Riganokampos Roma community and 323/2005 for the Makrigianni Roma community) that evictions by means of eviction protocols are not legal, as long as no alternative accommodation has been provided to the Roma. The present illegal eviction is in many ways analogous to that carried out by the Municipality of Aspropyrgos on 14 July 2000. On the 2000 eviction, the Greek National Commission for Human Rights noted in its report The state of Roma in Greece that:
With the highly insulting claim that he had ‘rid the area of garbage’, [the Mayor of Aspropyrgos] avoided the complications in which he would have been involved for the demolition of homes, even if those had been illegal
Most of the illegal evictions of these communities take place during summer months when when it is known that many Roma move to other localities in search of seasonal employment, much like many other non Roma…
Some of the now homeless Roma in Patras
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Since then, last week, all remaining Roma have been served notice of upcoming "police measures" to evict them, invoking a Obligatory Law dating from 1938 (this was legislation of the fascist Metaxas dicatorship). They were asked to show up in court with a lawyer withinh two days in a period of court recess!An guess what: GHM is the only one who cares all local forces seem to be supportive of all that…
How will they justify this action? I am sure they will but I wonder what the excuse will be.
Can the GHM or some other organisation bring a case against the municipality for their illegal activities ?
They justify all that on the basis that they do not believe that they should provide Roma with housing, regardles of what everyone says.Yes cases are being brought to the Eurocourt and will be won in two-three years but that is all irrelevant to the Roma threatened.Greek courts are out as it is the chief prosecutor who has asked authorities do evict.We now tunr to international appeals.